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Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, & BusinessThu, 08 Dec 2016 17:45:16 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1When Fake News is Real News and Real News is Fake Newshttp://www.webpronews.com/fake-news-real-news-real-news-fake-news-2016-12/
http://www.webpronews.com/fake-news-real-news-real-news-fake-news-2016-12/#commentsTue, 06 Dec 2016 21:49:30 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=461098All of this talk about fake news is starting to take root into the mainstream news bubble as if it were true, which it isn't in any discernible or meaningful way. We are already seeing social media and left leaning ... Read More

]]>All of this talk about fake news is starting to take root into the mainstream news bubble as if it were true, which it isn't in any discernible or meaningful way. We are already seeing social media and left leaning groups circling the wagons to make the fake news about fake news turn into censorship of real news that they politically disagree with.

After all, it's tempting for the left to want to shut up the right because they correctly see in Trump's victory that the right can now effectively bypass the left's long-term news filter and take their political arguments directly to their base and to voters in general.

Facebook, Google, Reddit, Twitter and the mainstream media had better be very correct when censoring so-called "fake news" or they will risk a huge backlash from the conservative majority in this country. That means that censoring obvious fake news that can be proven might be okay with most people (not me), but censoring news about pay to play deals in the Clinton Foundation or disagreement on the existence and causes of global warming or quietly deleting social posts that discuss things the liberal media doesn't think are true is simply not acceptable.

The big internet media companies and the mainstream press should realize that if only one side of the political spectrum is censored then just maybe new laws are needed to stop them from doing this.

Wikileaks has proven as real news that CNN, NBC, NYT and many others were colluding with the Democrats in order to help them get elected. That was fake news that was proven to be real news. Yet, they hardly covered it, so that unless a CNN viewer saw it on social media or a conservative news outlet they would probably rightly think it was fake news.

If you only watched CNN or a few other left leaning news sources you would probably think it was real news that Breitbart News is a racist white nationalist news site. That's actually fake news, totally disproven by the lack of evidence presented by it's mainstream news libelists and even some honorable liberals.

Even Fox News now says its is the policy of their network that global warming is real and is caused by humans. There are thousands of scientists who disagree with this mainstream consensus, none of Al Gore's scientific predictions have came true and it's a fact that data has been adjusted on multiple occasions to fit the narrative of warming and the majority of American's think it is a non-issue.

Will opposing man caused global warming be considered fake news by the social media giants and the mainstream news organizations? If you look at the lefts censorship patterns it certainly will.

For instance, the LA Times banned disagreement with this "settled science". If media leaves no room for disagreement on a scientific argument is it no longer science and instead simply faith? If the warmests are eventually shown to be wrong does their real news then become fake news?

In other words, there is often less than 100% chance that your real news might be my fake news and visa-versa. All I'm saying is be careful big social and big media, because in general... censorship is usually not a good idea.

Donald Trump suggested the idea that millions voted illegally for Clinton and he was chided by the media as a pusher of fake news. How do they know that? Well, they just do... no evidence is needed to say with 100% certainty that millions didn't vote illegally. Maybe they are right, but what if they aren't?

The media acts as if this is totally outlandish and so-called fake news while ignoring the evidence that says it could be true. Project Veritas released several hidden 60 Minutes style undercover videos that show that Democrat operatives are encouraging and aiding in illegal voting.

The State of California is run by liberal Democrats who have given every illegal resident a drivers license and allows registration at their DMV and does not allow asking anybody who votes for ID or about their legal status. Why wouldn't conservatives like Trump believe that there are millions of illegal voters in California who likely voted for Clinton?

These reasons are why 60% of Republicands believe that there are substantial numbers of illegal immigrants voting and therefore canceling out their legal votes.

There are in fact studies and surveys that show that illegal immigrants do vote and possibly as many as 3 million. True or not, who knows, but it certainly shouldn't be considered fake news since there is at least some evidence to support the accusation. Fake news should not be a political opinion or simply an opinion of the majority.

Unless it's calling a dog a cat, then publications should let the people debate it, share it on social and practice their First Amendment right to make their case.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/fake-news-real-news-real-news-fake-news-2016-12/feed/15 Reasons Adding a Number to Your Blog Post Titles Increases Page Viewshttp://www.webpronews.com/5-reasons-adding-number-blog-post-titles-increases-page-views-2016-12/
http://www.webpronews.com/5-reasons-adding-number-blog-post-titles-increases-page-views-2016-12/#commentsMon, 05 Dec 2016 23:07:47 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=461092You should add a number to at least half of your blog posts according to a successful small business marketing blogger. What he really means is that list formatted posts, such as 4 Best Ways to Make Money Blogging, 10 ... Read More

"Over the past three years, I’ve crafted titles for over 5,000 blog posts and have received over 58 million unique visitors to date," said Brandon Gaille in a guest post on Google's Inside AdSense blog. "With that many titles and that much traffic, it’s allowed me to identify what types of titles get the most traffic."

Gaille has been on a tear over the past 3 years, founding business advice site BrandonGaille.com which now has over 2 million monthly visitors. Galille has since parlayed that success into offering a course called The Blog Millionaire for others to learn how to make millions too. "The overwhelming success of his blog system led Brandon to create an online course to guide bloggers and businesses down the same proven path of success that his clients pay him up to $100,000/year for," said Galille on LinkedIn. There is currently a waiting list to join the course!

5 Reasons Adding a Number to Your Article Titles Increase Traffic

1. Placing a Number Gives Users What They Are Used To!

Call it the BuzzFeed effect, but lists drive traffic and a number in the title signifies a list. It's really that simple.

"Titles that begin with numbers are proving to drive traffic," says Gaille. "This is largely due to the increased consumption of users reading list posts more than any other type of blog post. A list post typically has anywhere from seven to forty key points, which are listed out numerically."

2. List Posts Are Shared the Most on Social

People love to share List Posts on social media like Facebook and sharing can supercharge your traffic. Why not play into the social media game and give them what they want, short, easy to digest sharable content.

3. Odd Numbers in Titles Are 20% More Effective

"Although no one has figured out exactly why this happens, the odd numbered titles get more clicks than the even numbered titles," said Gaille.

I think it's probably because it sounds more legit, not made up. For instance, if somebody posts the 10 best ways to drive traffic, people will inherently think that the writer thought of 10 points and stopped thinking. However, if it was the 7 best, it sounds as if these are actually what the author thinks are truly best.

4. People Love to Link to Lists Which Makes for Great SEO

Search engine optimization is driven by links and what better way to get links than to get your content shared on social. So part of your SEO strategy should be to write content that people want to link to and then not only will they link in their own blogs but they will also get the word out by sharing your posts on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and many other places.

5. Gaining a List Site Reputation Will Cause Repeat Traffic

Just like Brandon Gaille has discovered, writing lots of list style posts and including a number in the title gives you traction as a place people want to go. People like simple straight forward easy to read advice and that's what Gaille delivers. Those who are looking for something to share on social or for inspiration on an article (like this one) find list sites a great destination source.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/5-reasons-adding-number-blog-post-titles-increases-page-views-2016-12/feed/1Google Asked to Delete a Billion Links... and For the Most Part Complieshttp://www.webpronews.com/google-asked-delete-billion-links-part-complies-2016-11/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-asked-delete-billion-links-part-complies-2016-11/#commentsWed, 30 Nov 2016 16:39:31 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=461060Google's Transparency Report shows that Google was asked to remove over a billion links over the past 12 months and has complied with copyright holder requests 90% of the time. TorrentFreak crunched the numbers and found that Google was asked ... Read More

]]>Google's Transparency Report shows that Google was asked to remove over a billion links over the past 12 months and has complied with copyright holder requests 90% of the time. TorrentFreak crunched the numbers and found that Google was asked to remove 1,007,741,143 total links from 945,000 different domains. TorrentFreak says that a total of 908,237,861 links were deleted.

The music industry dominated the take down requests, with over a quarter billion over the last 2 years by BPI, which represents the UK’s recorded music industry. Nearly 98% of url's reported by this organization were removed.

The contention is that music "doesn't just happen," it's an investment. A recent report by IFPI, Investing In Music, details the significant investment of the music industry (particularly record labels) make in creating hit songs and popular artists. The report says that music companies invest US$4.5 billion annually in discovering, nurturing and promoting artists. It's no wonder they are actively fighting illegal sharing of their product.

]]>Michael Beckerman, President & CEO at Internet Association which represents big internet focused tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Uber, Netflix, Twitter, Lyft, PayPal, Salesforce, Rackspace and many more, sent a congratulations letter to the Trump transition team today. In it they sought to inform Trump how important the internet is to the economy and gave their take on issues dear to them.

ON DEMAND OR SHARING ECONOMY
By harnessing the power of the internet and internet-based commercial cloud technology, sharing economy platforms allow individuals to use their free time and resources to earn significant supplementary income under a flexible working arrangement that allows people to earn money how, when, and where they want. Although still in its nascent stage, the sharing economy is projected to account for $335 billion in global revenue in 2025, up from $15 billion in 2013.

Offer Consistent, Smart Regulatory Approaches: The rapid rise of this new sector of the economy, however, has been met by piecemeal regulatory approaches at the local and state levels that often feature misguided or overly burdensome rules driving up costs for consumers and workers. By steering clear of burdensome regulations, policymakers at every level can ensure this rapidly growing sector of the economy sees its full potential.

Protect the Flexibility and Economic Opportunities of the Sharing Economy: On demand and sharing economy companies are driving new economic growth and opportunities by providing individuals with unprecedented flexibility and control over the decision of when, and how, they earn income. By attempting to apply the same static workplace regulations of the 20th century to this new economic model, policymakers could threaten the very entrepreneurial spirit that drives these 21st century earning opportunities.

One of their other key concerns is safeguarding platforms like Facebook from lawsuits because of things their users post which means not weakening current intermediary liability laws:

"Weakening intermediary liability laws would not only chill innovation and free expression online, but would also threaten investment in the next generation of ideas fueling our digital economy. If digital content intermediaries were responsible for the content uploaded by users, over 80 percent of investors would be less likely to fund startups. In addition, 85 percent of investors are uncomfortable investing in digital content intermediaries open to unpredictable legal action."

Another major concern is copyright law safe harbors, such as fair use, exemptions, compulsory licenses and first sale doctrine:

"Threats to the flexible framework, such as weakening limitations or exceptions to safe harbors, would create barriers to entry for internet startups and creators, which would deny users the ability to access content
online."

They also want policies that promote pro data innovation rules:

"However, new regulatory proposals on how data is used and collected threaten to reduce this value. U.S. policy must ensure businesses in every U.S. industry can keep a competitive edge by innovating with data. To do so, policies should champion data innovation by acknowledging the crucial role of data in the modern economy and promote pro-innovation rules. This includes taking a harms-based approach to consumer privacy, instead of a collection-based approach, and stopping data minimization efforts or other proposals that would inhibit innovation."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/progressive-tech-companies-want-trump-protect-sharing-economy-dem-attacks-2016-11/feed/3Google's DoubleClick Bringing Video to Native Adshttp://www.webpronews.com/googles-doubleclick-bringing-video-native-ads-2016-11/
http://www.webpronews.com/googles-doubleclick-bringing-video-native-ads-2016-11/#commentsMon, 14 Nov 2016 22:03:05 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460990Google's DoubleClick announced today the ability to include video with both mobile and desktop native ads. This is important considering that more than half of all ad queries on DoubleClick’s publisher platform are on mobile. "With the addition of video ... Read More

]]>Google's DoubleClick announced today the ability to include video with both mobile and desktop native ads. This is important considering that more than half of all ad queries on DoubleClick’s publisher platform are on mobile.

"With the addition of video to our native ads solution, publishers can now capture premium video advertising budgets on their non-video content," said Jonathan Bellack, DoubleClick's Director of Product Management of Publisher Platforms.

Chris Quinn, Head of Commercial Operations at Kijiji, which is a subsidiary of eBay, commented on their tests with native ad video:

“The [DoubleClick] native video templates — content and app-install — enable Kijiji to give our advertisers an alternative to banner and static native. We were excited about the ability to run assets seamlessly without embedded video players, which will hopefully give us a jumpstart in the video space. Testing has just begun across our iOS app, and we look forward to seeing positive results and potentially incorporating into our greater offering in 2017.”

DoubleClick Extends Exchange Bidding to Mobile

DoubleClick has also expanded the beta of Exchange Bidding to include mobile apps.

"Exchange Bidding helps publishers maximize demand for every impression by letting them put multiple exchanges into competition in real time without adding any new client-side code," said Quinn. "Since we announced it earlier this year, the number of participating publishers has grown 4x, the number of exchange partners has doubled, and we’ve moved the product from alpha into closed beta in the US."

“By integrating directly with DoubleClick for Publishers, Smaato can compete in real time for ad impressions based on price and priority, in parallel with other exchanges. We’re delighted to be an early participant in Exchange Bidding and look forward to expanding this solution to all of our partners.”

DoubleClick Extends Dynamic Ad Insertion To VOD

They also announced that they were extending Dynamic Ad Insertion to video on demand (VOD). Dynamic Ad Insertion delivers seamless, personalized ad experiences to all screens, especially TV.

"Publishers like A+E Networks are now inserting relevant, highly targeted ads into both long- and short-form VOD content across all devices, and delivering personalized ads while eliminating common pain points like buffering," noted Bellack. "This feature will be capable of serving both direct-sold and programmatic campaigns - in both cases delivering smarter, data-driven ads that perform better."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/googles-doubleclick-bringing-video-native-ads-2016-11/feed/2eBay Browse Pages Make it SEO Friendlierhttp://www.webpronews.com/ebay-browse-pages-make-seo-friendlier-2016-11/
http://www.webpronews.com/ebay-browse-pages-make-seo-friendlier-2016-11/#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2016 17:18:22 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460907eBay announced last week that in order to make their Google links more SEO friendly they have created "browse pages." They said that in the past, a click from a search result to eBay would often be to an eBay ... Read More

]]>eBay announced last week that in order to make their Google links more SEO friendly they have created "browse pages." They said that in the past, a click from a search result to eBay would often be to an eBay search result itself.

Those of us in the SEO world know Google hates search results going to more search results. Google killed directories in their results and those kinds of results are similar.

With eBay's new browse pages, they have organized the results to be more what a consumer would expect to see when clicking a search result. The pages include pictures of various similar items broken down by brand, type and price and include summary descriptions.

eBay Says This Move Was Prompted by Millennials

"We’ve noticed something lately," said eBay in a blog post. "New online shopping patterns have emerged, especially with Millennial buyers. Instead of visiting specific online retailers for a single-purchase transaction, shoppers are using search engines to turn up results based on keywords."

They say that this behavioral change is because buyers are looking for inspiration and guidance, and they’re more inclined to explore and discover to find what they want.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like it was more of an SEO play than a reaction to new Millennial behavior. But, whatever the reason, it's definitely a better page for the Googler to land on than another set of search results.

Made Possible by Structured Data and RPIs

Earlier this year eBay announced to the consternation of some of their sellers that all products would be requiring Required Product Identifiers (RPIs). This structured data enabled eBay to make these new "browse pages" and helps them improve the shopping experience for buyers.

eBay told their sellers: "The most amazing part? All of these improvements were made possible by you. By adding Structured Data and Required Product Identifiers (RPIs) information to your listings, you allowed us to better organize site inventory and create a new, more relevant shopping experience for eBay buyers."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/ebay-browse-pages-make-seo-friendlier-2016-11/feed/2Google Adsense Team on How to Stay Complianthttp://www.webpronews.com/google-adsense-team-stay-compliant-2016-10/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-adsense-team-stay-compliant-2016-10/#commentsMon, 31 Oct 2016 14:15:34 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460860The Google Adsense team posted this morning what they consider to be the 8 most important best practices for not violating Adsense policies and to keep your account in good standing. Most of them are rather obvious, like "don't click ... Read More

]]>The Google Adsense team posted this morning what they consider to be the 8 most important best practices for not violating Adsense policies and to keep your account in good standing. Most of them are rather obvious, like "don't click your own ads" but they are worth reviewing if you make money from Adsense.

1. Don’t click on your own ads
There is no way to get your website banned quicker from Adsense than clicking your own ads. Simply don't click them and don't ask others to click them. "These kinds of clicks won’t count toward revenue and may get you suspended," notes Anastasia Almiasheva of the Adsense team. "Even if you’re interested in an ad or looking for its destination URL, clicking on your own ads is prohibited. Instead, use the Google Publisher Toolbar."

2. Think like a user
Write or create content for your users, not just to target certain types of Adsense ads. This is basic SEO as well of course, so they are simply saying good valuable and unique content that users enjoy consuming converts better than simply using copied content or stuffed keywords.

3. Keep it family-friendly and legal
Google promises their advertisers that their ads will not appear on adult sites or illegal sites, so it's best to stay family friendly. There are plenty of adult ad networks if you produce that kind of content.

4. Maximize content, not ads per page
Keep ads, Adsense and otherwise, to a minimum. Your web pages should be about the content, not the ads. This is especially true above the fold, where Google actually has an algorithm that defines the percentage of ads and if it's too high will penalize from an SEO perspective and will notify Adsense partners as well.

5. Avoid deceptive layouts
Google only wants their ads to be clicked when there is an intention by the user to click the ads. "Keep ads away from games, slideshows, and other click-heavy content and don’t place them near images," says Almiasheva. "Publishers may not use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. This includes, but is not limited to: placing images next to individual ads, placing ads in a floating box script, formatting ads so that they become indistinguishable from other content on the page, formatting content so that it is difficult to distinguish it from ads and placing misleading labels above Google ad units."

6. Create unique content
As we said earlier, content is king with Google in general and especially when their ads are on your website. Don't simply rewrite content and always attribute quotes properly. Make your content stand out by being uniquely produced by you or your team. Building a long-term relationship with your audience is what's important, and you can't do that by copycatting others.

7. Track your traffic
It's up to you, the webmaster, to know that your traffic is real and is not bot produced or otherwise artificial. Also, you should make sure that your traffic is coming organically and not from spammy links or links from what Google considers bad neighborhoods.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-adsense-team-stay-compliant-2016-10/feed/1Google Cuts Fiber and Division Head Resignshttp://www.webpronews.com/google-cuts-fiber-division-head-resigns-2016-10/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-cuts-fiber-division-head-resigns-2016-10/#commentsWed, 26 Oct 2016 17:18:49 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460841Google is cutting its losses with its high speed internet service to restrategize and reduce expenses. It will continue serving its current fiber cities and will complete the buildout of its fiber service where construction has already begun, but it ... Read More

]]>Google is cutting its losses with its high speed internet service to restrategize and reduce expenses. It will continue serving its current fiber cities and will complete the buildout of its fiber service where construction has already begun, but it will close offices and end all future fiber plans.

With this announcement, the head of Google's fiber division, Craig Barratt, announced his resignation. "As for me personally, it’s been quite a journey over the past few years, taking a broad-based set of projects and initiatives and growing a focused business that is on a strong trajectory. And I’ve decided this is the right juncture to step aside from my CEO role. Larry has asked me to continue as an advisor, so I’ll still be around."

Google currently has fiber in 9 locations; Kansas City MO, Kansas City, KS, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Nashville, Provo, Salt Lake City and The Triangle area of North Carolina. They list 4 cities as upcoming; Huntsville, AL, Irvine, CA, Louisville, and San Antonio. It's likely that none of these cities will see their Google fiber dreams fulfilled.

Another big disappointment is in store for cities that were listed as potential fiber cities by Google including Tampa, Jacksonville, Chicago, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose and probably Louisville. Google plans to close offices in all of these cities and layoff personnel.

"In terms of our existing footprint, in the cities where we’ve launched or are under construction, our work will continue," said Barratt. "For most of our potential Fiber cities — those where we’ve been in exploratory discussions — we’re going to pause our operations and offices while we refine our approaches. We’re ever grateful to these cities for their ongoing partnership and patience, and we’re confident we’ll have an opportunity to resume our partnership discussions once we’ve advanced our technologies and solutions."

Barratt added that they will be reducing their employee base in cities that are in an "exploratory stage."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-cuts-fiber-division-head-resigns-2016-10/feed/4Google Proclaims 2016, "The Year of the Supershopper"http://www.webpronews.com/google-proclaims-2016-year-supershopper-2016-10/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-proclaims-2016-year-supershopper-2016-10/#commentsMon, 24 Oct 2016 19:06:35 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460819In a blog post last week Google declared 2016 as the year of the supershopper. They define a supershopper as someone who is shopping primarily on their mobile device, looking for deals on the best products and constantly searching Google ... Read More

]]>In a blog post last week Google declared 2016 as the year of the supershopper. They define a supershopper as someone who is shopping primarily on their mobile device, looking for deals on the best products and constantly searching Google to so all of this.

"With the ability to instantly discover, research, and purchase, shoppers around the world are more informed and more efficient than ever before - they’ve transformed into supershoppers seemingly overnight." said Julie Krueger, Retail Managing Director at Google. "We all have that friend - the one who somehow knows the latest brands, the season’s must-have products, and where to find the best deals at the snap of a finger."

Google says that in 2015 over 50% of holiday shoppers were open to buying from new retailers and that 76% of mobile shoppers have switch their intended brand or retailer after searching Google.

"It used to be that shoppers would thumb through catalogues or stare longingly at the holiday window displays, but mobile is now the super shopper’s go-to source for inspiration," says Krueger. "Over 64% of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile search for ideas about what to buy before heading into store. And 1 in 4 mobile video viewers in the U.S. have visited YouTube for help with a purchase decision while they were at a store or visiting a store's website."

They also report that people more than ever before are search for phrases like "best gift" indicating that they are using search to find quality, not just deals. Google also believes that shoppers are looking for unique gifts too, reporting that searches related to "cool gifts" grew 80%.

Mobile Search: A Door to the Store

Searches on mobile are still really about driving business to the brick and mortar store, rather than just pure online shopping. "Although more and more people are willing to buy on mobile, we know that mobile is still used predominantly as a door to the store," said Krueger. "In fact, 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related business within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase."

They say that once in the store, shoppers use their mobile device to find deals and information about the products they are interested in.

From a retailers perspective, expect online conversion rates to increase across devices as the holidays get to full stride. Google says that last year on mobile, sales were up 30% on Black Friday and 50% on Cyber Monday.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-proclaims-2016-year-supershopper-2016-10/feed/3Google Says "Don't Worry About Links"http://www.webpronews.com/google-says-dont-worry-links-2016-10/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-says-dont-worry-links-2016-10/#commentsThu, 20 Oct 2016 16:15:04 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460806Links are a topic on the mind of every webmaster, search marketer and entrepreneur, especially as it relates to ranking in Google search results. The funny thing is, Google really, really doesn't want you to worry about links, because of ... Read More

]]>Links are a topic on the mind of every webmaster, search marketer and entrepreneur, especially as it relates to ranking in Google search results. The funny thing is, Google really, really doesn't want you to worry about links, because of course, that wouldn't be natural.

I thought it interesting to raise up a few comments Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller made during his latest Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout, that illustrate how much Google doesn't want us to worry about links.

One hangout participant stated that as a teacher he gets a lot of links from random places, some that might even be considered bad neighborhoods and asked; Are these kinds of links good for me or bad for me? Is Google giving me credit for them? Is Google penalizing me for them? Is Google discounting them? Should I disavow them? Should I not worry?

"I like that last option," said Mueller. "In general, if these are normal links, organic links, that are happening that are pointing at your content, then I would just let them be. That's the way the internet works, people link to your content."

He added, "If your students have blogs and they think, oh, this is actually a teacher that knows what he's talking about, then that's a good link. That's not something you need to disavow just because maybe it's a sitewide link or in the blog role. I wouldn't worry about where people are linking from. If these are organic links that are at your site, that's perfectly fine."

The caller stated, "So in best case scenario, I get credit for them. In worst case scenario, Google will discount them. But nothing to worry about being paralyzed or anything like that?" Mueller answered, "Exactly."

Another person asked, "Are you ever going to create an episode just for the discount of links? Like a hangout just for that kind of subject, because I still feel like it's discounted. If you had, let's say, five bad links, and that link-- I think there was an example there from the "New York Times." So that "New York Times" link will also be discounted by accident, or no, it won't? It's just still a gray area there with this whole discounted link thing going on."

"Yeah, but in general, that's not really something you need to worry that much about," answered Mueller. "That's kind of the way our algorithms are picking up these links and trying to figure out, how should we treat these links? And that's something that we've been doing in the past as well. That's even in the basis of PageRank, in the sense that not all links are the same, and we need to figure out how to value the individual links."

"But that's not something that as a webmaster you really need to worry about, because you can't really control that," he said. "From that point of view, it's hard to say we could do a whole Hangout just on links, because ideally in the background, there is this big, big sign saying, you shouldn't be playing with links. And if we're talking the whole time about how to make links look natural, then that's essentially contradicting the other one."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-says-dont-worry-links-2016-10/feed/1How to Watch the Final Presidential Debate on YouTubehttp://www.webpronews.com/watch-final-presidential-debate-youtube-2016-10/
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 15:55:54 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460746Google has made it easy to watch the final presidential debate right on YouTube. "Over the past three debates you’ve come to YouTube to follow live coverage from more news organizations than ever before," says Brandon Feldman, who is YouTube's ... Read More

]]>Google has made it easy to watch the final presidential debate right on YouTube. "Over the past three debates you’ve come to YouTube to follow live coverage from more news organizations than ever before," says Brandon Feldman, who is YouTube's head of news partnerships. "And Wednesday’s third and final debate will be no exception."

YouTube will be hosting a number of news channels airing the debate starting at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, October 19:

The debate will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News and is expected to be very entertaining considering the Wikileaks releases that showed an extreme Clinton coziness with the media when she was running against Bernie Sanders. Expect Trump to tout that the election is being rigged, with evidence this time from Wikileaks, while Clinton continues to push Trump as aggressive with woman based on newly released allegations of alleged behavior a decade ago. It will be fun to watch!

]]>Google Seeks to Transform Education with New Change Centerhttp://www.webpronews.com/google-seeks-transform-education-new-change-center-2016-10/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-seeks-transform-education-new-change-center-2016-10/#commentsMon, 17 Oct 2016 14:01:29 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460740Last week the Google for Education Transformation Center was announced as a hub and launch pad for school change. Google has long been involved in pushing technology to improve and modernize education, but with the launch of the Center it ... Read More

]]>Last week the Google for Education Transformation Center was announced as a hub and launch pad for school change. Google has long been involved in pushing technology to improve and modernize education, but with the launch of the Center it hopes to spur a community of educational thought leaders to action.

Persuading schools to adopt innovative technology is not as simple as it may seem, there are often cultural obstacles that need to be overcome and leadership that embraces positive change and strategies to bring all stakeholders on board through transparency and learning programs.

Technology can't just be forced on educators, it needs to be first embraced as a solution by educators to a perceived problem. Finally, school leaders need to budget for change and improvement, so that technology is about student progress and not funding reallocation.

"Over the past few years we’ve had the privilege to work closely with thousands of schools that are seeking to improve and innovate with the help of technology," said Liz Anderson, who is Google's Global Lead for their Education Adoption Programs. "Every school is different, but we’ve heard a lot of common themes from educators: that change is hard; that change is about a whole lot more than just technology; and that obstacles are often similar across districts."

She added, "School leaders face many of the same challenges and opportunities, but often have limited ways to share with — and learn from — each other. That’s why we’ve created a new hub for school leaders to share ideas, resources, and stories: The Google for Education Transformation Center."

The 7 Critical Areas for School Change

Google brought educational leaders together from all over the US to create a "transformation framework" guiding schools to improving education through innovation and technology:

Vision - School change only happens when there is a strong vision at the start. When a school has a clear vision, it means the leader has ensured that the school and wider community are working together toward shared goals for the future.

Learning - School leaders empower their teams to create a set of instructional practices, curricula, assessments, and learning experiences that put students at the center - that engage learners deeply and meet their individual and collective needs.

Culture - Successful school leaders create structures, rituals, stories, and symbols that foster a culture of innovation and encourage people to learn from failure and success.

Technology - Technology is only one enabler of school change, but it's a critical part. School leaders find, test, and gain their team's support for the right technology (tools and processes) to meet the school’s vision.

Professional Development - Teachers have a lot on their plates. School leaders provide educators with effective professional development and ongoing coaching focused on applying tools and practices to meet student needs.

Community - Schools serve diverse communities made up of parents, families, businesses, government, nonprofits, and residents. Throughout all stages of the transformation process, leaders ensure these partners support the school and the vision.

Rich Ord is Co-founder of StudentGrowthWorks.org, a technology platform for monitoring student growth and making IEP's meaningful.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-seeks-transform-education-new-change-center-2016-10/feed/2Google Buys FameBit, Sees Branded Content as Essential to YouTubehttp://www.webpronews.com/google-buys-famebit-sees-branded-content-essential-youtube-2016-10/
Wed, 12 Oct 2016 20:06:56 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460722Google has purchased FameBit, a technology and marketing platform that helps brands link up with social media stars on YouTube and Twitter. This is part of a growing trend where Google and others realize that preroll video ads are not ... Read More

]]>Google has purchased FameBit, a technology and marketing platform that helps brands link up with social media stars on YouTube and Twitter. This is part of a growing trend where Google and others realize that preroll video ads are not the future and that marketing integration into content is the smart way to reach millennial's and even younger audiences.

Ironically, that's how television started in the 1950's, where every show was brought to you by a product and often that product was integrated into the content.

"We believe that Google’s relationship with brands and YouTube’s partnerships with creators, combined with FameBit’s technology and expertise, will help increase the number of branded content opportunities available, bringing even more revenue into the online video community," noted Ariel Bardin, Vice President, Product Management at Google.

FameBit provides a modern version of this, telling marketers that it will grow your customer base via tutorials, comedic skits, mentions, routines, DIY videos, game plays, lookbooks, vlogs and hauls. What this means is that FameBit, and now YouTube, will connect your brand with YouTube stars and help popular YouTuber's make additional revenue in the process.

"Every year, more and more brands are making YouTube essential to their marketing strategy," said Bardin. "In fact, in the last year alone, the top 100 advertisers have increased their spend on YouTube video ads by 50 percent."

Google knows that even though brands have increased their marketing on YouTube, what they really want are deeper connections with YouTube stars and through extension their fans.

"As brands continue to embrace the value of YouTube, they’re also taking their investments one step further, partnering with creators on branded content opportunities such as product placements, promotions and sponsorships," he said. "As we look to the future, we want even more creators and brands to come together and realize the benefits of these creative collaborations."

Unlike Google search, YouTube video is not inherently a lead generation opportunity, but rather is more like TV, promoting brand recognition and brand favorability. Fortunately for Google, that's what Madison Avenue sells and Google wants to tap into more of their dollars.

According to eMarketer TV ad spending will be $72.01 billion in 2016 with digital ad spending just slightly under that. But with advertising in video formats from YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter, etc..., digital ad spend will increase as a percentage. By 2020, it's predicted that digital ad revenue will be 37% higher than TV.

Of course, digital delivery of TV is also on the rise, replacing the cable middlemen and ultimately making digital the primary way to consume video content.

]]>Google Launches 'Get Trips' Mobile Apphttp://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-get-trips-mobile-app-2016-09/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-get-trips-mobile-app-2016-09/#commentsWed, 21 Sep 2016 19:56:27 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460591Google has created a comprehensive new travel app, Get Trips, available for both Android & iOS mobile devices, that push it further into the travel industry. The new travel app, targeted toward sight seeing consumers, is both a trip planner ... Read More

]]>Google has created a comprehensive new travel app, Get Trips, available for both Android & iOS mobile devices, that push it further into the travel industry. The new travel app, targeted toward sight seeing consumers, is both a trip planner and coordinator, giving you helpful suggestions on things to see nearby a destination as well as keeping your reservation info in one convenient place.

Just Be Happy

Google pointed out a study that concluded 74% of travellers are most stressed with the logistics of travel. "Most of the happiness gleaned from vacation is dependent upon the stress level of the vacation," said Shawn Achor, CEO of GoodThink which conducted the study and author of the book Before Happiness. "Poorly planned and stressful vacations eliminate the positive benefit of time away. The less the stress, the more likely you will experience a positive benefit from the time off. A positive, well-managed vacation can make you happier and less stressed, and you can return with more energy at work and with more meaning in your life."

Personalized Tour Guide in Your Pocket

"Knowing what to do when your holiday starts can turn what’s supposed to be fun into a lot of work," said Stefan Frank, Product Manager for Google Trips in a blog post. "You might get recommendations from friends, travel guides, or online reviews — but figuring out how to squeeze everything you want to do into a finite window of time can be stressful, especially when you’re in a new place, often with limited access to the web."

Google Trips according to Google is a "personalized tour guide in your pocket" with each trip organized by day plans, reservations, things to do, food and drink, and much more. Google says that all of the apps features work offline too, which is incredibly helpful to those traveling without the benefit of expensive phone connections and inconsistent wifi. You can create the trip entirely in advance and simply download it to your phone.

Planning a Day is Easy

Google Trips includes day plans for the top 200 cities in the world and features the most popular itineraries, automatically generated from data Google has gathered from other travellers. It may sound creepy, but Google knows where just about everybody is at all times and keep a record of it, just in case it decides to build an app like this one. Don't forget, you agreed to it when you added any Google app to your mobile device.

"Say your friends told you that you have to see the Sagrada Familia — and you’re looking for suggestions on things to do around that spot," says the Google Travel team. "Press the “+” button in the day plans tile to jump into a map view containing all the top attractions in your destination. If you’re time constrained, you can specify above the map whether you have just the morning or afternoon, versus a full day. Then simply tap and pin the Sagrada Familia to build your itinerary around it. Google Trips automatically fills in the day for you."

It Keeps Your Info Too

Google Trips ensures that you don't have to scramble or have an internet connection when you have to find your reservations for planes, trains, automobile or hotels. This eliminates the panic we know that many of you feel when you just can't connect, the data is hard coded into your phone!

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-get-trips-mobile-app-2016-09/feed/3Google+ Upgrades to a core Google Apps for Work Servicehttp://www.webpronews.com/google-upgrades-core-google-apps-work-service-2016-09/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-upgrades-core-google-apps-work-service-2016-09/#commentsWed, 21 Sep 2016 18:56:54 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460587The Google Apps Team has announced on their blog that starting today, Google+ is considered a core Google Apps for Work service when used within a domain or corporate intranet. This gives Google+ the same level of technical support as ... Read More

]]>The Google Apps Team has announced on their blog that starting today, Google+ is considered a core Google Apps for Work service when used within a domain or corporate intranet. This gives Google+ the same level of technical support as their other core services such as Google Drive or Gmail.

Desktop users will now be automatically upgraded to the current Google+ version and will no longer have an option to stay with a "classic" version. Mobile apps users of Google+ should upgrade to the current version since older versions will not be supported any further.

"Engaging people is key to innovation, and many Google Apps for Work domains have found Google+ to be an invaluable tool that helps drive active engagement and cultivate innovative ideas from all levels of the organization," notes the Google Apps Team. "By making Google+ the newest core service for Google Apps, Google+ will now provide the support and guaranteed SLAs that businesses need."

Google+ will continue to be a non-core service for Google Apps for Education domains.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-upgrades-core-google-apps-work-service-2016-09/feed/3Georgia Prison CIO Gives Google Cloud Credit for Saving Millionshttp://www.webpronews.com/georgia-prison-cio-gives-google-cloud-credit-saving-millions-2016-09/
http://www.webpronews.com/georgia-prison-cio-gives-google-cloud-credit-saving-millions-2016-09/#commentsTue, 20 Sep 2016 16:16:30 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460544Georgia's Department of Community Supervision has gone virtual via Google Apps and Chromebooks. With staff increases and with significant amounts of time outside of their offices, The State of Georgia was looking for a more economical and cost-efficient solution to ... Read More

]]>Georgia's Department of Community Supervision has gone virtual via Google Apps and Chromebooks. With staff increases and with significant amounts of time outside of their offices, The State of Georgia was looking for a more economical and cost-efficient solution to getting things done in their offender supervision programs. They made the decision to go 100 percent virtual office and 100 percent Google.

"We decided to try something that had never been done in Georgia state government history: eliminate the majority of our offices entirely and allow hundreds of our 2,100 staff members to work remotely instead," said Phil Sellers, Director, Information Technology Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, writing in the Google for Work Blog. "Our existing desktop computers and office applications didn’t have the features to support remote workers, so we started looking into alternatives. I was familiar with Google’s cost-cutting, collaborative and mobile-friendly features, so my team led the switch to Google Apps for Work and Google Chromebooks."

He says that they have saved literally millions of dollars by not paying for expensive hardware and enterprise licensing contracts, not to mention the increased productivity of employees who can now work anywhere, anytime. "We no longer have dedicated IT services for routine storage and email support, and our small IT staff of 35 doesn’t need to roll out patches and antivirus software. If an officer closes her Chromebook or loses power, she doesn’t have to worry about trying to recover lost data. If we need to replace a device, it’s inexpensive and fast to get someone back up and running."

Many government agencies and large corporations have been leery of cloud solutions because of possible security breaches, which could include crucial data exposures. Georgia's Department of Community Supervision believes the opposite is true. "Officers used to store their data on laptops, so if their device was lost or stolen, they’d lose sensitive information about parolees and probationers," said Sellers. "With Chromebooks, we store everything in the cloud and can easily wipe and replace a device if needed. Officers use a 2-step authentication to enter our systems, which adds another layer of security."

The agency is often field-based away from the office, so using Chromebooks and Android phones lets their officers work wherever they are and collaborate with colleagues via Google Docs, Google Drive and Google Hangouts. "Since we’ve adopted the policy, officers are more productive, and sick leave and employee turnover have decreased," added Sellers.

Google is pushing the concept of Chromebooks, Google Drive Apps and Android as one enterprise level platform for businesses to operate. They are competing with established players such as Microsoft, Salesforce and to some extent Amazon. They are working to distinguish the Google approach by tying in their Android OS and phones, Chromebook tablet, the Google Cloud Platform and their many office related apps and chat tools so that businesses have a much less expensive alternative than the competitors.

Google recently touted how its platform is the most secure. "We're talking about stuff that you've seen in "Mission Impossible"-- biometrics, lasers, vehicle barriers, bollards. All of this is custom-built, also, to make the data center more secure," said Neal Mueller, Security and Networking lead for Google Cloud.

]]>Google recently conducted a roundtable of in-house experts discussing how Google uniquely provides a secure platform for businesses to store their data online. Google experts tell the story of how Google invented innovative technology allowing them to keep their customers information and data safe from digital intruders.

"Information security has become such a hot topic," stated Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security for Google Apps. "With the increase in cybercrime, the trends in privacy, the changes in regulations, it's something that businesses can't ignore. Enterprises all over the world are concerned about security."

Companies around the world are rapidly moving toward cloud computing spurred on by the success of Amazon's AWS platform. Google has been working hard to catch up especially in regards to large enterprise companies that require an extreme level of security.

"The move of businesses to cloud computing has really increased," said Feigenbaum. "Companies see the benefits of lower cost, but also the ability to innovate faster for users to collaborate. But one of the big areas of hesitation is security, right? Companies are not comfortable putting their own data into the cloud."

Should Companies be Concerned About Cloud Security?

"I think we're seeing a real sea change right now with respect to people understanding that the cloud is more secure than on any on-premise solution," says Suzanne Frey, Director of Security, Privacy, and Trust at Google. "If you just think about it, mathematically, you've
got all these different on-premise solutions and individual teams trying to do the right thing."

Frey says that Google is extremely focused on putting their best talent and expertise on making sure that the Google Cloud solution is secure. "If you take a look at our customer base, we have some of the world's largest banks. We have some of the most stringent government customers. We're FedRAMP certified here in the US, and the fact that we can solve for security for all of those customers is a great testimony to our capabilities," she adds.

She sees Google as different than other cloud providers. "In addition, we solve for something special," said Frey. "In talking to our customers, it's our ability to innovate and to bring new ideas to bear that help enable them to be competitive, productive, and truly novel, and focus on the things that matter to them. That's part of our really special secret sauce."

Frey adds, "I often say to people, at Google, security comes in two forms, it's both traditional cybersecurity, but it's also security against technological stagnation.

Innovation Vs. Security

Can a cloud provider be too secure at the expense of innovation? "Actually, I like the observation about being too focused on security to the exclusion of innovation," says Adrian Ludwig, Director of Android Security, in reply to Frey's observation. "I hadn't seen that phrased that way. But I think one of the changes that we've seen in the mobile space over the last few years is companies have focused first and foremost on innovation--Android being a great example of that-- but we've tied it to a security model that is how people actually consume applications and services."

"So we thought about the web and sandboxing model that was used on the web, and we incorporated that in the way we built application sandboxing," Ludwid added. "I think a consequence of that is cloud services are becoming more and more important. Most applications that are built for Android, or that are built for mobile, regardless of your mobile platform, are really cloud-based. So I think those two are tied together, because both of them, we're thinking about innovation first and foremost, and the security has sort
of unlocked that innovation."

The Cloud Has Security Advantages

"We have a complex set of systems that we're dealing with today and they get more and more complex over time," said Tim Willis, Technical Manager of Chrome Security. "We also have adversaries with increasing levels of sophistication. So you've got that on one side and on the other side, we've got IT managers having to defend their networks. The problem with defense is you need to defend everything incredibly well. Attackers only need to find one hole into your network."

Willis adds, "I think that's where an advantage of moving to the cloud is that you have dedicated teams with robust experience. Some of the people who I work with wrote my textbooks in university and it's one of those things that I get to work with these experts and that's all they do. They focus on security, and that's one of the huge benefits, in my point of view, of moving to the cloud."

Safety of the Data that's Not at Google

Do cloud providers have a responsibility for data safety when the data leaves the cloud?
"Safe Browsing would be a good example of something that we can do at very, very large scale, where we actually believe that the right approach is make the entire internet safer.," says Stephan Somogyi, a Product Manager in Google's Security and Privacy Engineering Team. "So we build systems that hunt around and find malware and find phishing and then we go and report this.

"An individual consumer can benefit from this, because their web browser will let them know," adds Somogyi. "In a cloud environment, enterprises can take advantage of this data as well and keep themselves protected. We take this approach through a number of different areas-- certificate transparency being another example-- where we're taking a look at the internet as a whole and finding ways to keep it safe at scale."

Google Cloud Security Innovations Moving the Needle

"For the longest time, we have been talking about sort of two-factor authentication is critically important for most organizations to implement," said Frey. "Many customers use Google Authenticator and other apps like that to generate a one-time passcode, and those are great. They're certainly better than nothing, right? However, a hardware-based security key is just quantum leaps ahead in terms of they're not hackable and they really do protect our customers from phishing in a way that, basically, the one-time passwords do not."

"One of those (not so glamorous) things is encryption for me," said Willis. "It may not seem incredibly innovative, but we're working really hard to make sure that all of our traffic is encrypted at rest and at transit. One example where we're being open with that is our HTTPS Transparency Report. Now, you can go to that site and you can see our progress towards our goal of 100% encryption in transit through all of our products."

"Again, another example would be working with TLS 1.3.," added Willis. "That's the next generation of Transport Layer Security. Now, it may not sound glamorous, but we're not only
helping to implement that, we're helping author the next version. That shows that we're in the mix and we know what technologies are around the corner."

Willis explained that a practical application of that would be Progressive Web Apps. "These are low friction web applications, which are designed to help increase engagement and have an app-like experience for customers and businesses," he said. "We've seen studies how that increases engagement, and it's fantastic, it's easy across the board."

"Why am I talking about it?" asks Willis. "TLS is actually a hard requirement for those apps. So it's one of these things where not only are we innovating, we're making sure that security is baked in from the get-go. I think that's one huge advantage of Google."

"There's a couple of elements about that that are interesting to me," said Ludwig. "One of them is it's not so much that the security itself is innovative, it's about using an innovative product to make security available."

Ludwig says that what they did early on with Android is thinking about the platform stack. "We were like, OK, you need to have a verified boot, and you need to have encryption, and you need to have sandboxing," he said. "Those are all sort of, I think at this point, almost commodities for an operating system. But one of the things that Google brought to bear was security services. It's going to be a cloud-connected device and we're going to make all of those services available, by default, on all of the devices."

"We started thinking about, how do you bind services into the operating system itself? We added things like SafetyNet and Verify Apps, where there are effectively hooks in the operating system where we can make sure that we're adding security dynamically over time.
And so we can innovate in security even more quickly than we can innovate in the operating system itself," added Ludwig.

Interestingly, Ludwig says that most people don't even realize this about the Google Cloud. "But that's OK, because they're safer and they're happier as a result of it."

]]>Google released today an updated Transparency Report on their copyright removal requests from Google search results. These requests come from copyright owners who claim that sites linked to in Google search results are violating copyright laws. Often these pages are auto-scraped exact copies of a site trying to steal Google visits and ad clicks.

"The report hasn’t changed much since 2012 and was getting a little rusty," posted Google's Manager of Public Policy & Government Relations, Jess Hemerly. "So today, we’re releasing a new version of the report that makes it easier for you to understand the data."

Here are the changes that Google noted:

Examples of removal requests, similar to the annotations we added to government requests to remove content last year. These illustrate the range of things we’re asked to remove and the decisions we make in response.

A new Explore the Data page, which lets you search the database of removal requests and see a more detailed list of reporting organizations, domains, and copyright owners.

An explanation of how copyright notice and takedown is applied to Google Search, which we hope leads to a better overall understanding of the process.

Google also made some earlier changes to other sections of the Transparency Report according to Hemerly:

In late July, we published the data on government requests for user data for the second half of 2015. We coupled this update with a blog postabout some of the recent advances in surveillance reform, including the Judicial Redress Act and the EU-US Privacy Shield.

At the beginning of August, we added added YouTube and Calendar to ourHTTPS Report Card, continuing to show our progress toward secure connections for people across our products. Learn more about YouTube’s efforts on the YouTube Engineering blog.

A few weeks ago, we updated the government requests to remove content section with data for the second half of 2015. The data show an upward trend in governments asking us to remove content from our products and services, with content on YouTube, Search and Blogger cited most frequently.

From July to December 2015, the top three products for which governments requested removals were YouTube, Web Search, and Blogger.

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-updates-transparency-report-enables-search-removal-requests-2016-09/feed/2New Features for Google Adwords: Campaign Groups and Performance Targetshttp://www.webpronews.com/new-features-google-adwords-campaign-groups-performance-targets-2016-09/
http://www.webpronews.com/new-features-google-adwords-campaign-groups-performance-targets-2016-09/#commentsTue, 06 Sep 2016 20:04:05 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460447Google announced today new features in their Adwords product, campaign groups and performance targets, both intended to make it easier for you to track and forecast the performance of your marketing campaigns. Campaign Groups The new campaign groups feature allows ... Read More

]]>Google announced today new features in their Adwords product, campaign groups and performance targets, both intended to make it easier for you to track and forecast the performance of your marketing campaigns.

Campaign Groups

The new campaign groups feature allows you to group all of your Google ad campaigns including search, shopping, display and YouTube all into one campaign, making them easier to track and improve. Google is envisioning marketers using this grouping to track marketing themes across their network of ad opportunities.

They gave an example of a theoretical campaign called "Holiday Launch" where you can easily link your YouTube advertising stats with your ecommerce and search data.

Performance Targets

The performance targets feature improves on your ability within Adwords to set goals and track clicks and conversions by campaign group. Combining performance targets with the new campaign groups feature lets you set target clicks and conversions across Google's network of marketing platforms.

"Tell us how many clicks or conversions you want to receive, how much you want to spend, and what average CPC or CPA you wish to maintain," noted Jon Diorio, Product Manager of Google AdWords. "We'll then automatically show you a single view of how your campaign group is performing against those goals, and what we think you'll likely achieve by the end of the campaign period."

Diorio said that these feature will not alter how Google serves your ads or optimize your campaigns, but simply offers advertisers better evaluation tools.

Google let some advertisers try the new features prior to their public release today. "Previously I needed to export all my campaigns into a spreadsheet, group them together, and create a pivot table simply to see how they are performing," said Oleg Monakhov, Senior Lead Generation Manager at Wrike. "With campaign groups & performance targets, we can much more easily see how our groups are performing relative to our goals, all from within the AdWords interface."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/new-features-google-adwords-campaign-groups-performance-targets-2016-09/feed/3New Google Merchant Center Launchedhttp://www.webpronews.com/new-google-merchant-center-launched-2016-08/
Tue, 30 Aug 2016 19:55:58 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460395Google introduced a new version of its Google Merchant Center today that offer more efficient navigation and makes additional shopping programs easier to find. The Google Merchant Center enables online retailers to connect their products to Google so that their ... Read More

]]>Google introduced a new version of its Google Merchant Center today that offer more efficient navigation and makes additional shopping programs easier to find. The Google Merchant Center enables online retailers to connect their products to Google so that their products are included in search results, YouTube and partner websites.

Responsive New Interface

"With updates to Merchant Center, you’ll see a fast, responsive new interface, aligned with the modern look and feel of the rest of Google’s products," says Sven Herschel, Product Manager for Google Shopping at Google. "We’ve changed Merchant Center navigation by bundling common tasks and actions. For example, you can use the new Home page to view recent announcements and dashboard data for your account, and you can find consolidated product feed and product data quality information under the Products page."

The Merchant Center is the place for ecommerce sites to upload their product data to Google, literally letting millions of shoppers see their online and in-store inventory.

Explore Google Programs for Your Products

"Merchant Center now lets you discover new ways to apply your data to promote and sell your products," said Herschel. "Use Merchant Center to explore additional Google programs for your products, including Local Inventory Ads, Merchant Promotions, Product Ratings and more, while continuing to manage and configure your product data for Shopping ads."

Additional Updates to Merchant Center Features

Google has also made updates and improvements to improve speed and functionality so that retailers can get their products online more quickly including Feed Rules, their Diagnostics Page and Currency Conversions. Find more info on those here.

]]>Google To Lower Mobile Search Ranking of Sites with Interstitialshttp://www.webpronews.com/google-lower-mobile-search-ranking-sites-interstitials-2016-08/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-lower-mobile-search-ranking-sites-interstitials-2016-08/#commentsWed, 24 Aug 2016 17:19:11 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460326Google announced that on January 10, 2017 they are going to lower the mobile search ranking of sites with interstitial ads popping up in front of content. This is something that many mobile searchers will applaud and many publishers will ... Read More

]]>Google announced that on January 10, 2017 they are going to lower the mobile search ranking of sites with interstitial ads popping up in front of content. This is something that many mobile searchers will applaud and many publishers will not be too happy about.

"To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly," posted Google Product Manager Doantam Phan . "Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller."

People have become very upset over intrusive popups on mobile devices because it significantly degrades the user experience. "I can't stand all this stuff popping up on my phone," commented Bonnie Akridge. "I wish they would get rid of it all. Much of what I read is already mobile friendly but I get the question box do I want to switch to mobile friendly. All this crap is so flipping annoying. I didn't sign up for this and I hate it being force on me.﻿"

An internet marketer had a somewhat different reaction. "I've always hated those popups that come up and block the page (especially on mobile)," stated S. Kyle Davis. "Now it seems that Google has made the use of "interstitials" a ranking point. Good to hear! Of course, any time Google does something like this, the opposite reaction is that it is making things harder for advertisers (thus making it harder for content producers to make money and continue producing content). However, I always hope that it pushes us to find better, less obtrusive and more effective ways to communicate paid messages to audiences."

Although this initially applies to only mobile search rankings, its a reasonable prediction that Google will extend this to desktop rankings as well in the future, effectively killing interstitial and popup advertising on the internet.

"Although the majority of pages now have text and content on the page that is readable without zooming, we’ve recently seen many examples where these pages show intrusive interstitials to users," says Phan. "While the underlying content is present on the page and available to be indexed by Google, content may be visually obscured by an interstitial. This can frustrate users because they are unable to easily access the content that they were expecting when they tapped on the search result."

Google specifically does not want sites to show a popup that covers the main content either immediately or delayed, they don't want any ads that have to be closed by the user and they consider large top ads to be effectively the same as an interstitial. So they are going to penalize sites where ads dominate above the fold space.

They did offer exceptions where they won't rank lower sites with interstitials that are a response to a legal obligation such as age verification, are part of a login process or small top banners.

"Remember, this new signal is just one of hundreds of signals that are used in ranking," said Phan. "The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content."

]]>http://www.webpronews.com/google-lower-mobile-search-ranking-sites-interstitials-2016-08/feed/1Be at the 2016 Rio Olympics via Googlehttp://www.webpronews.com/google-rio-olympics-2016-08/
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 18:30:50 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=460035Google is gearing up to be the go-to place for Rio Olympic Games information. "Next week, the 2016 cauldron will be lit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where thousands of athletes will come together to represent the strength and pride ... Read More

]]>Google is gearing up to be the go-to place for Rio Olympic Games information. "Next week, the 2016 cauldron will be lit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where thousands of athletes will come together to represent the strength and pride of their home countries with the world as their audience," says Google Product Manager Jonathan Livni, in a post on the Google Search blog. "In celebration of the next chapter in Olympics history, we’re bringing the best our products have to offer to help people around the world stay up-to-date with the Olympic Games Rio 2016.

Livni lists these products that will help you keep up with the Rio Games:

Watch official broadcasters’ event highlights on YouTube in 60+ countries

Explore Rio and venues in Google Maps

Keep up to date with the latest search Trends from around the world

"If you search on the Google app on Android and iOS, you’ll also see an option to get automatic updates on top event and medal wins, so you’ll never miss a beat," says Livni.

YouTube & The Rio Olympics

"In the last 12 months, over 23,000 years of content have been watched on YouTube for the four most popular Olympic Games’ sports alone - athletics, gymnastics, diving and swimming, and volleyball," commented Google's Christoph Heimes, Head of News and Sports Partnerships, EMEA at YouTube. "To put this in perspective, that's the equivalent of watching all 17 days of the Olympic Games, 24 hours a day, not once, but over half a million times. Nearly two thirds of that viewership has happened on mobile devices -- and even more in countries like the U.S., U.K. and Japan."

YouTube is sending 15 of their top creators to Rio to live stream everything except the games themselves, because NBC will be broadcasting these considering they paid $1.226 billion for the rights! You can also watch NBC and other official broadcasters’ video highlights on YouTube in more than 60 countries around the world, including the BBC (U.K.), America Movil (Latin America excluding Brazil), NHK (Japan) and many others.

Google will link all of these official broadcasters’ highlights directly into Google Search and YouTube Watch Cards for the Rio Games.

According to the YouTube Summer Games Report by the Google Trends team, the majority of time spent watching sports content happens on mobile. In the past 12 months, mobile devices accounted for 65% of Olympic sports videos global watch time.

Sports related content drives fans not just to YouTube, but to search as well. The Games are motivating more searches globally than the last World Cup and past two UEFA European Championships.

Brands on YouTube Tying into Rio Olympic Games

Brands are also heavily committed to the Rio Games, uploading ads celebrating the athletes, culture, and passion around the Olympic Games, and they are being watched in big numbers.

"From April 2016 through June 2016, ads from Worldwide and National Olympic Partners have already received the equivalent of over 400 years worth of watch time," stated Heimes. "From epic wins to all-star performances, YouTube will bring you the best from Rio, before, during and after the Games through official broadcaster channels and celebration via content creators."

"Even if you’re a world away, preview the places where the world's most talented athletes will make history and explore the breathtaking beauty of Brazil," said Livni. "We hope you’ll let Google be your guide."

]]>"AMP for Ads" Makes Mobile Faster... and More Profitablehttp://www.webpronews.com/amp-for-ads-2016-07/
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:01:01 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459903Googles Paul Muret, VP, Display, video & Analytics at Google, says that Google's research shows that the average mobile site takes 19 seconds to load. If however, through optimization you can get your site to load within 5 seconds or ... Read More

]]>Googles Paul Muret, VP, Display, video & Analytics at Google, says that Google's research shows that the average mobile site takes 19 seconds to load. If however, through optimization you can get your site to load within 5 seconds or less, Google estimates that you can earn twice as much revenue than those at the 19 second average.

"Think about that for a minute," said Muret in a post on the DoubleClick Publisher Blog this week. "That’s a long time! Not only is this frustrating for users but it’s also a huge missed opportunity for publishers."

A web surfers sensitivity to website speed have gone up significantly in the last few years. In a recent study of google.com search, the Google team found that every four hundred millisecond delay in delivering search results resulted in a half point drop in overall search volume. "It's about the time it takes to blink and on mobile the situation is even more important," commented Muret in a talk at the DoubleClick Leadership Summit earlier this week. "Creating a great user experience necessarily means making it super fast, but an alarming 77% percent of publishers today, their web pages take more than 10 seconds to load, and the average is actually 19 seconds."

AMP for Ads

Google's main initiative to make the mobile web faster is a the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP), launched last Fall, which is an open sourced global community of publishers and other tech companies. Google's analysis shows that mobile web pages that use AMP HTML load four times faster and use 10 times less data on average than non-AMP mobile web pages. Over 145 million AMP pages have been created so far from 640,000 demands. Google sees AMP as a first step because it only covers publisher content, but not the ads, which means opening a web page still involves "much slower loading javascript bundles."

At the DoubleClick conference Muret announced AMP for Ads, a new initiative to incorporate AMP technology into the ads themselves in order to make the entire mobile experience faster. In an example that Paul Muret gave the Washington Post, which is an early adopter of AMP and AMP for Ads, instead of the ad taking 4 seconds longer to load than the publishers content, with AMP for Ads it loads seamlessly at the same time as the mobile page content.

AMP for Landing Pages

Google announced "AMP for Landing Pages" to make the click-through fast as well. This much speedier experience is likely to significantly increase conversions for mobile marketers.

"Making experiences fast is the first step, but they also need to be really well integrated into their environments into the context that they sit in," said Muret. "If ads are not integrated well it can lead to ad blindness, or worse, annoyance and ad blocking. As an industry we need to come together and think about creating better ads for all of our users."

Muret believes that good integration starts with native advertising. He said that we need the ads to really fit into the context of experience.

DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM)

If you are a DoubleClick user this will be of interest to you, Muret announced programmatic native in DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) which "brings the power of native to all advertisers to be able to run programmatically at scale across all their campaigns instead of delivering arbitrary of rectangles of content all over the place." He said that advertiser's can create asset bundles that can include headlines, images, and colors that are "dynamically fit to the form and function of the page it's on." This should make for a much more integrated experience which Google hopes will result in less ad blindness, less blocking and more clicks!

Google's DoubleClick also wants to make sure that there is enough inventory for these dynamic programmatic ads. That's why Muret also announced that DoubleClick was expanding their support for native and Double-Click for Publishers to include ALL app and web content and ALL deal types, programmatic and reservations. What this means for DoubleClick is that they now offer full coverage of the massive shift to native advertising.

Muret noted that DoubleClick's new technology, in a test with eBay, caused a 3 times increase in user engagement compare to eBay's normal non-native ads.

Programmatic Video

Video is the future of internet advertising without a doubt, and of course DoubleClick and Google are on top of this trend. Muret said that an amazing 85% of "Ad Age Top 100 Advertisers" have already bought programmatic video ads on DoubleClick Bid Manager. More importantly, they are seeing a 550% increase in programmatic video revenue from TV & media companies year over year.

Google, like many other tech media companies, is at the forefront of the video advertising revolution that has been long predicted, but is now finally happening. One of the key trends is multi-device viewing which Google sees as an opportunity to deliver video ads in even more places while users seamlessly move back and forth between different content formats.

"Over 90% of people use multiple devices sequentially to accomplish a task,"said Meghan Lee, Agency Development Manager for Google AdWords. "Adwords advertisers are used to a very simple and clear way of measurement and they have that same expectation on mobile."

Outstream Video

Muret also announced a new product from DoubleClick, Outstream Video, which is for non-video content. "For advertisers this means getting additional reach with the power of sight, sound and motion," Muret told the conference audience. "For publishers this means tapping into TV budgets and driving yield even when the the content is more traditional."

Outstream Video ads are served outside of a video player, often between paragraphs of text, typically without sound. According to Google, interstitials, native, and in-feed are types of outstream video. An example of outstream video ads is the autoplay silent video on Facebook, for instance.

VR & AR Ads

Google is also very aware of another massive disruption and opportunity in digital advertising, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Research by Digi-Capital predicts that VR and AR will be a $150 billion industry by 2020. The study forecasts that AR (augmented reality), a less intense experience, will take the lion’s share around $120 billion and VR $30 billion.

Virtual Reality is a technology that can be very disruptive in that it has the potential to impact how we live and what we do and from a marketers perspective it opens up a whole new world.

"Obviously virtual reality and augmented reality are coming are are here and are being incorporated," said Muret. "Rest assured we are going to be your partner in delivering those experiences as we get those built into our advertising system."

"The promise of VR is what the industry calls "presence"—the feeling that you're really somewhere else," commmented Aaron Luber, who is in charge of Google and YouTube partnerships.

TrueView Discovery Ads

A prelude to true VR and AR is already here, 360-degree TrueView ads, which Muret announced they are now making them available to all advertisers. YouTube is king of 360-degree videos, of which uploads of 360-degree videos are growing and have doubled over the past three months, according to Luber.

Google announced, just yesterday, that they were changing the name of "TrueView in-display ads" to "TrueView Discovery Ads." They didn't stop with just the name change though, they also made significant enhancements to the product, TrueView Discovery Ads will now appear on mobile search results.

They've also made TrueView Discovery Ads more relevant on search results pages and are being used across the full inventory of YouTube videos, which Google says has increased ad click-through by 11%.

With TrueView Discovery Ads, your videos can be discovered across YouTube, YouTube search results, video watch pages and on the YouTube homepage, no matter what device you're on," commented Josh Rubel, Head of Brand Product Strategy at YouTube, in a promo video for TrueView. "Users initiate the ad by simply clicking your video, which takes them right to your videos watch page. By bringing the user to your channel environment, the level of engagement and activity... subscribes, shares, and additional views is impressive."

]]>Are You Ready for the New Mobile Gold Rush?http://www.webpronews.com/ready-new-mobile-gold-rush-2016-07/
Wed, 13 Jul 2016 15:05:39 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459744"Are you ready for the new mobile gold rush? Of course you’re not," said Jim O'Leary, Sr. Manager Mobile Solutions Marketing at Cisco. "Though truth be told, the pending growth in mobile video may be more like a video tornado ... Read More

]]>"Are you ready for the new mobile gold rush? Of course you’re not," said Jim O'Leary, Sr. Manager Mobile Solutions Marketing at Cisco. "Though truth be told, the pending growth in mobile video may be more like a video tornado and only a handful of mobile operators are prepared."

What Jim O'Leary is talking about is the rapidly changing landscape of content viewing. Multi-device viewing is now the norm and the dumping of the old cable content bundle is well under way. Over-The-Top content (OTT), where content is consumed without going through the traditional gatekeepers such as the cable or satellite provider, is bringing complete and utter disruption to the cable and broadcast companies.

Video now accounts for the majority of global mobile data traffic and is forecast to be the key driver of data traffic growth globally. To date, mobile video (and the ability to monetize the content) has been dominated by Internet players, such as YouTube, Netflix, with the operator role simply one of connectivity provider.

However, a number of operators are developing their own content delivery platforms. Singtel, Verizon and PCCW are three prominent examples of this trend, with their HOOQ, Go90 and Viu video platforms respectively. While HooQ and Viu are variants of the subscription-based model, Go90 more closely resembles the Internet business model, with a reliance on advertising for revenues and a focus on millennials. - Jim O'Leary, Cisco

"Mobile operators across the world face the same twin challenges of slowing growth and ongoing disruption of core services by new Internet & OTT players, even as the broader mobile ecosystem continues to see significant revenue growth," O'Leary posted. "So if you are tired of being just an operator that carries mobile video and prefer to be able to monetize it, read on."

Mobile Video Watching is Booming!

O'Leary sees a significant monetization opportunity for mobile operators with video for a very good reason, the exploding growth in using mobile devices to watch videos. An On Device Research study commissioned by the IAB in 2015 (Download PDF) confirmed the changing landscape for mobile globally, with 35% watching more video on their smartphone versus last year.

In February 2016 Cisco released a study predicting that by 2020 there will be 5.5 billion global mobile users which is up from the 4.8 billion currently, and those millions of new mobile users will be watching video too!

More astonishing, the study says that by 2020 there will be 11.6 mobile-connected devices! This is indicative of another emerging trend, connecting ALL devices to the internet via mobile operators where internet content and data can be consumed and sometimes produced on and by these devices.

Gartner estimates that the Internet of Things (IoT) is currently connected to 6.4 billion devices and will connect to 20.8 billion "things" by 2020. Some of these "things" will be video enabled devices as well. For instance, watching a video of how to make vegan scrambled eggs on your refrigerator door!

Mobile Operators Can Play "Central Role" in Content

So mobile operators have massive connectivity with virtually everyone 12 years old and up having a smart phone and if they can play a central role in providing content they can benefit from the "emerging online video value chain." It's about using great content to boost usage of their mobile broadband service. O'Leary believes that Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and others should take advantage of this "content opportunity" in order to cash in and drive business growth.

The biggest impediment for mobile phone companies entering the video content space is their tendency to charge high rates for large bandwidth consumption. Mobile broadband carriers should eventually come to the realization that their businesses are tied to consumers needing them and it is in their interest to provide inexpensive ways to consume high bandwidth mobile content or they will by bypassed by new mobile broadband competitors that get it.

Mobile is the New Video Distribution Platform

O'Leary predicts that OTT, where the internet is used to bypass traditional content middlemen like cable, is the driving motivation that should entice broadband providers to enter the content space more aggressively over the next few years. He advocates mobile operators creating a "cloud based platform" and then partnering with content producers in order to "scale their video infrastructure efforts and deliver high-quality, live video and on-demand content to consumers on any device — be it their smartphone, tablet or connected television."

Content producers will likely consist of a wide variety of players from traditional sources like ESPN and Disney to well funded content upstarts such as such as Amazon, Apple, YouTube and Netflix. Content alliances between mobile operators may also include more direct deals with talent such as successful independent internet based content stars on YouTube, Vine and even Snapchat. Mobile is already the primary platform used to consume video content so the next step is to cut out the middleman and partner directly with popular content providers.

"In growing numbers, consumers are replacing their traditional cable and satellite TV packages with smaller, more customized, and often less expensive mixes of programming, cobbled together from an array of online and on-demand services," said O'Leary. "As more consumers replace their big-bundle TV packages with à la carte online offerings, an opportunity is emerging for mobile operators and other service providers to combine mobile broadband (MBB) packages with compelling “over the top” content."

Mobile operators should realize that they are the distribution platform for millennials, they are the network and they are the new cable and satellite companies. With that in mind, they don't need the networks or cable to drive viewership and usage of their platform, they simply need great content however they can get it, even if it means becoming content creators themselves.

]]>All Websites Should be Using AMPhttp://www.webpronews.com/google-amp-websites-2016-07/
Thu, 07 Jul 2016 16:52:45 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459654John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google in Switzerland, confirmed what everybody is thinking, Google and the AMP Team ultimately intends for almost all sites to display AMP versions for mobile devices. "If you ask the AMP team, they ... Read More

]]>John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google in Switzerland, confirmed what everybody is thinking, Google and the AMP Team ultimately intends for almost all sites to display AMP versions for mobile devices. "If you ask the AMP team, they will tell you that all websites should be using AMP, "Mueller said in replying to a question from a Hangout participant. "So to some extent, I can see that making sense. It's definitively one way to make really fast websites, or websites that load almost instantly."

"If you've been holding off because you're saying, well, my website doesn't need this, then maybe it makes sense to take a look again and see what it does now," Mueller said. "So at the moment, we only show it for the kind of in the news, carousel on top, the top stories and that's something where I expected to kind of expand to other parts of the search results as well."

Meuller was also asked about the recent news about eBay adopting AMP, "I think with the eBay one, even though it was an AMP, they couldn't add to cart, or something like that," responded Mueller. "They didn't have that functionality on the site."

"There's definitely some things that don't work so well with AMP at the moment," says Meuller. "But it's an open source project, so I think people from eBay are active there as well, making new components and that's something that I expect to evolve over time." The Webmaster Trends Analyst added, "I am really happy that someone like eBay is taking the time to do these kind of experiments, because even if they're not showing in search yet, we can't get there without people actively trying things that kind of go past what's possible now."

"I imagine if someone like eBay can get it to work for their site, which is really dynamic, which requires a lot of interaction, then that's something that'll be possible for a lot of other sites as well," concluded Meuller.

Check out the discussion in the Google Hangout video below:

Ebay clearly believes that AMP is for more than just publishers and thinks it would be great for all kinds of websites and especially for ecommerce. "The speed aspect was very critical for us, and we wanted to do more for speed," stated Senthil Padmanabhan, Principal Web Engineer at eBay. "That is when we ran into AMP."

The AMP project was announced around the same time we started the initial brainstorming for browse. It seemed to resonate a lot with our own thinking on how we wanted to render the new experience. Although AMP was more tuned towards publisher-based content, it was still an open source project built using the open web. Also, a portion of the traffic to the new browse experience is going to be from search engines, which made it more promising to look into AMP. So we quickly pinged the AMP folks at Google and discussed the idea of building an AMP version for the browse experience, in addition to the normal mobile web pages. They were very supportive of it. This positive reaction encouraged us to start looking into AMP technology for the eCommerce world and in parallel develop an AMP version of browse.

Today we are proud to announce that the AMP version of the new browse experience is live, and about 8 million AMP-based browse nodes are available in production. Check out some of the popular queries in a mobile browser — Camera Drones and Sony PlayStation, for example. Basically adding amp/ to the path of any browse URL will render an AMP version (for example, non-AMP, AMP). We have not linked all of them from our regular (non-AMP) pages yet. This step is waiting on few pending tasks to be completed. For now, we have enabled this new browse experience only in mobile web. In the next couple of weeks, the desktop web experience will also be launched.

"We are excited to partner with Google and everyone else participating on the AMP Project to close the gap in launching a full-fledged eCommerce experience in AMP," says Padmanabhan. "We have created a combined working group to tackle the gap, and we will be looking into these items and more." The items Padmanabhan is referring to include smart buttons, input elements, advanced tracking and A/B testing. "With items like these in place, AMP for eCommerce will soon start surfacing."

"We will also be looking into creating a seamless transition from the AMP view to a regular page view, similar to what the Washington Post did using Service Workers." Padmanabhan added. "This will enable users to have a complete and delightful eBay experience without switching contexts."

"We are on our path to making eBay the world’s first place to shop and this is a step towards it," concluded Padmanabhan.

]]>TV Ad Industry Takes On The Internet With Addressable Advertisinghttp://www.webpronews.com/tv-ad-industry-takes-internet-addressable-advertising-2016-07/
Wed, 06 Jul 2016 02:25:44 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459645The traditional television industry is finally feeling the pressure of the data rich micro-tuned digital advertising world of the internet and is hitting back with addressable advertising. For years advertisers have become accustomed to extreme targeting with website advertising and ... Read More

]]>The traditional television industry is finally feeling the pressure of the data rich micro-tuned digital advertising world of the internet and is hitting back with addressable advertising. For years advertisers have become accustomed to extreme targeting with website advertising and particularly with search advertising. Over the last few years micro targeted video ads have become the norm as video is quickly becoming mainstream on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This is causing a shift in ad spending from television to the internet that the TV industry is working to stop, or at least join in on.

The TV industry's first step was to make viewing options available on all devices, often referred to as over-the-top (OTT) content viewing. This has been sped along by users, especially millennials and even younger teens watching more and more traditional television content on small internet connected devices. Additionally, smart TV's are connected to the internet and more importantly are also being connected to smart cable boxes capable of serving the same kind of targeted ads that are served on the internet. This targeted advertising is called addressable advertising and it is the television industry's competitive answer to the internet.

“One of the things we’re thinking about is whether TV channels go away and become apps,” Brian Hughes, senior vice president-audience analysis and practice lead at Magna, told MediaDailyNews during a preview of the report.

Hughes added that while the way consumers and industry practitioners think about television may be changing, its vitality as a medium remains as important as ever. It’s just becoming more complicated to track, understand and manage.

“The message you keep hearing from the industry is that TV is dead, but I think we’re finding that it’s a lot more complex than that. It’s the fact that OTT usage has exploded. TV is not, in fact, dead. It’s just changing. But it remains a central experience for most consumers and a vital medium for most advertisers,” he explained.

Asked what it’s changing into, Hughes said it’s part of the same meta theme that has been transforming much of the traditional media marketplace: a shift to an “on-demand world, where content is at your fingertips and you can get it where you are on the devices you are on.”

With addressable advertising advertisers will be able to target diapers in a video commercial to a stay-at-home-dad watching ESPN on either his mobile device or even on his home TV, while others watching the same live or recorded show will see different commercials based on their own demographic, sociographic and behavioral data. No longer will all men be shown shaving and truck commercials.

Big data is being collected and utilized by companies such as Google's DoubleClick to make addressable advertising possible enabling the merging of traditional television viewing with the viewing of that same content on small devices to serve targeted adverting.

"Advertisers and programmers who embrace the fundamental shift from a “big game” mentality to one of reaching viewers across many screens and devices will be rewarded with up-to-the-minute flexibility, deeper audience insights and much more dependable ROI data," according to a recent report by the DoubleClick the Marketing Team and posted by Anish Kattukaran. "With much more granular attribution and measurement, advertisers can now understand the true performance of their ad–including engagement, brand lift, and conversions. Addressable advertising creates value for everyone in the advertising chain. This lets marketers reach and attribute highly specific targets, and helps broadcasters and distributors better value their content and monetize multiple audiences at the same time. It also give the viewers themselves a better experience, with ads that are more interesting and relevant to them."

Advertisers can still advertise to the masses, such as in the Super Bowl, but will also have the option of using granular data attribution to reach subsegments of the audience that are more likely to be interested in their offer. This is both a benefit and a challenge to the television industry because targeted advertising will bring higher CPM's but with this new data advertisers will also be able to track conversions (sales) and know whether their ads are working or not. This is something traditional TV has not had to deal with and has been a huge frustration to the internet advertising industry because they have had to work with advertisers on this extreme tracking for years, while watch ad dollars go to TV which didn't have to prove out their value. Addressable advertising is leveling the playing field.

True conversion reporting for television and television content across all devices is the holy grail for advertisers because it lets them target ad dollars much more effectively.

"Advertisers and programmers who embrace the fundamental shift from a “big game” mentality to one of reaching viewers across many screens and devices will be rewarded with up-to-the-minute flexibility, deeper audience insights and much more dependable ROI data," says Kattukaran. "With much more granular attribution and measurement, advertisers can now understand the true performance of their ad–including engagement, brand lift, and conversions."

]]>Google: Highest-Capacity Undersea Cable Ever Built is Onlinehttp://www.webpronews.com/60tbps-faster-fiber-optic-us-japan-cable-comes-online-2016-06/
Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:08:21 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459614Google announced that the 60Tbps long-haul undersea fibre optic cable from the US to Japan that it invested in has come online as of today, June 30, 2016. The Google Cloud itself will have access to up to 10Tbps (Terabits ... Read More

]]>Google announced that the 60Tbps long-haul undersea fibre optic cable from the US to Japan that it invested in has come online as of today, June 30, 2016. The Google Cloud itself will have access to up to 10Tbps (Terabits per second) of the cable’s total 60Tbps bandwidth. This bandwidth will power Google Apps and their Cloud Platform. According to the Google Cloud team "customers will run at the speed of light with this new FASTER undersea pipe."

"This is the highest-capacity undersea cable ever built — about ten million times faster than your average cable modem — and we’re beaming light through it starting today," commentedAlan Chin-Lun Cheung of Google Submarine Networking Infrastructure. "This is especially exciting, as we prepare to launch a new Google Cloud Platform East Asia region in Tokyo later this year."

The new undersea cable system, announced in August 2014, was funded and built by a consortium of internet companies including Google, Singtel, China Telecom Global, KDDI and China Mobile International. The group partnered with NEC to build the cable which came to be known as FASTER for obvious reasons. "From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, ‘faster, Faster and FASTER’, and at one point it became the project name and today it becomes a reality," said Hiromitsu Todokoro, Chairman of the FASTER Management Committee. "This is the outcome of six members’ collaborative contribution and expertise together with NEC’s support."

"The completion of the FASTER cable system will provide capacity to support the expected four-fold increase in broadband traffic demand between Asia and North America," stated Ooi Seng Keat, Vice President, Carrier Services of Singtel Group Enterprises. "By adding network redundancy and ultra-low latency to our existing trans-Pacific cable systems, it reinforces our leadership in international data services in the region and enhances our infrastructure to support our customers’ critical data traffic."

“With a state-of-the-art design, the cable system provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy,” he added.

NEC's OCC Factory made the state-of-the-art cables that power the FASTER connectivity system. Check out how they are made below:

FASTER is the only trans-pacific cable line capable of delivering speeds up to 60 terabits per second using a six-fibre pair cable, according to NEC. "FASTER is the first trans-Pacific submarine cable system designed from day one to support digital coherent transmission technology, using optimized fibers throughout the submarine portion. The combination of extremely low loss fiber, without a dispersion compensation section, and the latest digital signal processor, which compensates for the huge amount of cumulative dispersion at the end of the cable, enable this six-fiber pair cable to deliver 60 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific."

The FASTER Cable System is a 9,000km trans-Pacific cable that lands in Oregon in the United States and has two landing points in Japan, Chiba and Mie prefectures. FASTER connect to all of the major hubs on the West Coast via system extensions including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle. Additionally, FASTER will be connecting to neighboring cable systems extends that will allow it to bring high-speed internet access to many other nations in Asia.

"This was the first trans-Pacific submarine cable built solely by NEC Corporation, employing the latest 100Gbps digital coherent optical transmission technology. We are honored that the consortium entrusted us to build FASTER. Although we faced many challenges during the construction, I am truly glad that we were able to overcome these and to welcome this day," said Kenichi Yoneyama, Project Manager for FASTER at NEC's Submarine Network Division. "This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region."

]]>Song Lyrics Added to Google Search Resultshttp://www.webpronews.com/song-lyrics-google-search-results-lyricfind-2016-06/
Tue, 28 Jun 2016 14:51:35 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459559In a deal with LyricFind, Google is now displaying lyrics in search results starting immediately. LyricFind is the world’s largest lyric licensing service with over 4,000 publishers in its catalog. Lyrics will be seen both in Google’s search results and ... Read More

]]>In a deal with LyricFind, Google is now displaying lyrics in search results starting immediately. LyricFind is the world’s largest lyric licensing service with over 4,000 publishers in its catalog. Lyrics will be seen both in Google’s search results and within Google Play Music.

“We’re happy to expand the depth and quality of lyrics available on Google’s services,” says LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne. “We’re working together to make lyrics available to a larger audience in a faster and more efficient way.”

We're happy to announce our partnership with Google! Through this new deal, LyricFind will add lyrics from 4,000... https://t.co/upKXDG6cZg

Billboard spoke to Ballantyne and got this quote indicating that the partnership will generate millions more in royalties to its publishing partners:

"It should be a significant revenue stream," Ballantyne said. "I can’t get into the rates, but we expect it to be millions of dollars generated for publishers and songwriters as a result of this. It’s all based on usage. Royalties are paid based on the number of times a lyric is viewed. The more it’s viewed, the more publishers get paid."

Included in the over 4,000 music publishers that LyricFind currently licenses are all the majors – Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing (including EMI Music Publishing), and Kobalt. According to LyricFind, they are also the exclusive third-party lyrics licensor for Universal Music Publishing Group, the world’s largest music publisher.

]]>Google Ad Partner Specializations Launched So Agencies Can Stand Outhttp://www.webpronews.com/google-partner-specializations-ad-agencies-2016-06/
Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:05:46 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459532Partner Specializations are now being awarded to Google Partner's that can demonstrate expertise in particular areas in order for these firms to better market themselves to businesses that advertise on Google. The Google Partner program was launched 3 years ago ... Read More

]]>Partner Specializations are now being awarded to Google Partner's that can demonstrate expertise in particular areas in order for these firms to better market themselves to businesses that advertise on Google. The Google Partner program was launched 3 years ago as a way for small businesses to work with ad agencies, marketers, online professionals and specialists that are knowledgable about Adwords and work with the Google ad team on a regular basis. All Partner's are trained and certified by Google.

The program helps small businesses place ads with more sophistication and compete for keywords with their bigger rivals.

Google Partners can earn specializations in 5 areas of expertise:

Search

Mobile

Video

Display

Shopping

“The changes to the Google Partner program are exciting for potential advertisers and our company,” says Neal Gann, CEO of Showroom Logic. “These new specializations show Google’s commitment to better serve their Partners and help us highlight what makes our technology and team so unique. It should also help prospective clients make a clear choice because it's now easier for them to find top Partners that are aligned with their immediate goals.”

Google says that to gain a Specialization designation the Partner must have at "least one certified individual and a history of consistent product performance."

How companies can earn specializations

Specializations are given based on the following criteria:

Your company has at least one certified affiliated user in an AdWords product area

Your company is demonstrating product expertise in the specialization area

Your company has at least US$10,000 (or local currency equivalent) 90-day AdWords spend in that area

We look at a number of things to determine your company’s level of product expertise, including how you're implementing the AdWords product for your clients, if you're growing your usage in the product area, if you're retaining your clients in that product area, and other related factors.

Premier Google Partner badge

Google also announced the Premier Google Partner badge "designed to recognize Partner's who manage a substantial portfolio of Google advertising campaigns and deliver great results for their customers."

"Google identifying and recognizing highly experienced agencies is a great step and a distinctive honor. We are thrilled to be a part of the new designation and look forward to displaying this badge," stated Joe Chura, CEO of Launch Digital Marketing.

Premier Partners must maintain a higher level of certification requirements but will receive significantly more support from the Google advertising team, according to Allan Thygesen, VP Global Sales & Operations at Google.

]]>RankBrain Third Most Important Factor Determining Google Search Resultshttp://www.webpronews.com/rankbrain-third-important-factor-determining-google-search-results-2016-06/
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 21:07:46 +0000http://www.webpronews.com/?p=459513Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand wrote an interesting piece on how RankBrain has now become the third most important ranking factor behind content and links. According to a report on BackChannel RankBrain is being used on almost ALL search queries helping ... Read More

]]>Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand wrote an interesting piece on how RankBrain has now become the third most important ranking factor behind content and links. According to a report on BackChannel RankBrain is being used on almost ALL search queries helping determine the most relevant results and their order:

Google is characteristically fuzzy on exactly how it improves search (something to do with the long tail? Better interpretation of ambiguous requests?) but Jeff Dean says that RankBrain is “involved in every query,” and affects the actual rankings “probably not in every query but in a lot of queries.” What’s more, it’s hugely effective. Of the hundreds of “signals” Google search uses when it calculates its rankings (a signal might be the user’s geographical location, or whether the headline on a page matches the text in the query), RankBrain is now rated as the third most useful.

“It was significant to the company that we were successful in making search better with machine learning,” says John Giannandrea. “That caused a lot of people to pay attention.” Pedro Domingos, the University of Washington professor who wrote The Master Algorithm, puts it a different way: “There was always this battle between the retrievers and the machine learning people,” he says. “The machine learners have finally won the battle.”

RankBrain announced in October 2015 in a Bloomberg article and video (below) is a machine learning algorithm that uses big data from billions of search queries, who's searching, who clicks what, geolocation, etc. to better determine what a user expects to see in the search results.

Google has been very secretive about RankBrain since October but did references it recently in a post on their Google Cloud Platform Blog. The post, by Google Hardware Engineer Norm Jouppi, was about how machine learning is now powering most of Google's applications including Street View, Inbox Smart Reply, voice search and Google Search. Norm commented about a "stealthy project at Google several years ago to see what we could accomplish with our own custom accelerators for machine learning applications." This "stealthy project" resulted in Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) which is now powering machine learning features at Google.

It's fascinating how fast Google implements new technology in its applications:

TPU is an example of how fast we turn research into practice — from first tested silicon, the team had them up and running applications at speed in our data centers within 22 days.

TPUs already power many applications at Google, including RankBrain, used to improve the relevancy of search results and Street View, to improve the accuracy and quality of our maps and navigation. AlphaGo was powered by TPUs in the matches against Go world champion, Lee Sedol, enabling it to "think" much faster and look farther ahead between moves.